WALTHAM, MA—The recent book published on entrepreneurship by philanthropist, serial entrepreneur and venture and angel investor Desh Dehspande has pleasantly surprised many. It offers a lot of wisdom to existing as well as would-be-entrepreneurs.
“On Entrepreneurship & Impact” is published by Deshpande Foundation and its foreword is written by N. R Narayana Murthy, founder of Indian tech giant Infosys.
INDIA New England News did a brief online interview with Deshpande after his book is published. Here are the unedited excerpts:
INDIA New England News: Is this your first book?
Desh Deshpande: Yes. This is my first book.
INE: How long it took to write this?
DD: About 4 months.
INE: What was the motivation behind this book?
DD: I have met hundreds of entrepreneurs over the last two decades. In their journey many reach a crossroad where they need to make a decision. Several entrepreneurs have thanked me many years later for something I told them in the past.
Many of them have asked me to write a book. There are so many books that get published these days that I did not want to add one more to that heap. This book is my attempt to write something more concise that busy entrepreneurs could read.
INE: What are the three takeaways from this book?
DD: Entrepreneurship has to be experienced; it cannot be read in a book. Entrepreneurs share two common attributes: they are naïve and very optimistic. They see every challenge as an opportunity and they believe that tomorrow is always going to be better than today. Nothing can beat living this optimistic life, always hopeful of a better tomorrow.
My hope is that millions of optimistic entrepreneurs will take charge of the problems facing their communities, creating a vibrant and more just world where everyone is excited about the future.
Deshpande will be at Tie Boston StartupCon and his book will be available there.